When the original ATV Wild Ride was released on Nintendo DS last year, it was praised for its impressive play controls and solid track designs. Unfortunately the game's limited release made it difficult to find at retail outlets, thus keeping it from reaching a wider audience. Now developer Renegade Kid has decided to give the DS release a 3D upgrade, and this time they're bypassing the publisher altogether and choosing to release the game on Nintendo's 3DS eShop service instead.

From the moment you first fire up ATV Wild Ride 3D, you immediately notice the visual upgrade from the DS original. Not only does the 3D depth add a nice layer of realism to the racing action, but the new special effects and greater level of detail really bring the tracks to life onscreen. There's also a nice level of variety between the various tracks, with each featuring distinct graphical touches based on the country they're featured in.

The basic racing is fairly standard in design, but what makes the game so challenging and fun are the high-flying jumps and stunts you can execute as you make your way around each track. Each time you successfully pull off a trick, you're awarded speed boosts, which you'll find particularly useful once you begin tackling the more advanced difficulty settings.

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The smooth and responsive controls remain intact and there are still plenty of stunts to pull off in order to rack up those valuable speed boosts. You've got a wide range of characters and ATVs to choose from and there are a host of tracks in different countries to tackle. You'll even have the choice to play different variations of these individual tracks including: reverse, extended and extended reverse. While this might seem like a trivial addition, these variations actually look and feel quite different from the standard tracks.

To further complement the intense racing action Renegade Kid also included a rocking soundtrack, complete with full vocals. Most of the tunes are fairly heavy and do a great job of setting the tone for the racing experience going on around you.

Since this was a preview build, some of the modes and additional features weren't yet available, such as online play, but the addition of internet multiplayer will likely be a popular feature, and we'll have a full rundown of all of these additional modes once the game is released on the 3DS eShop later this year. Even with these features not playable it's still easy to see that Renegade Kid has done a great job of updating its ATV racer and it should prove to be another great addition to the 3DS eShop.

"Look ma, no feet!"

Renegade Kid was kind enough to send over a few 3D MPO screenshots that you can check out using the QR Code below.